News Cuttings

The IADC Contracts Committee has begun a thorough review of the IADC Offshore Daywork Drilling Contract – US in view of new regulatory requirements and operating practices in the Gulf of Mexico. Since last year’s Macondo incident, drilling contractors and operators alike have been evaluating the impact of these changes on contractual relationships.

One key area pertains to the provision of rigs for emergency response operations. The full effect of requirements to send rigs and crews to assist in these situations has yet to be evaluated and addressed.

“There are many important considerations emanating from last year’s tragedy,” remarked John Buvens, Rowan Companies. “These will need to be addressed in the IADC model contract form.” Mr Buvens serves as the Contracts Committee’s vice chair – offshore and is leading the revision efforts.

Contractor members interested in participating in the revision process should contact Ken Fischer at ken.fischer@iadc.org.

Breidenthal, Bourgoyne join WellCAP Review panel

John Breidenthal, Chevron Energy Technology Company, and Darryl Bourgoyne, Louisiana State University (LSU), have been elected to the IADC WellCAP Review Panel. Mr Breidenthal represents leasee/operator company interests, and Mr Bourgoyne brings academic perspective to the panel.

Mr Breidenthal leads risk assessment efforts for Chevron’s deepwater Gulf of Mexico projects and is involved in assessing drilling contractor well control competencies for offshore rig personnel in Nigeria. He is an approved WellCAP instructor and a certified facilitator for WellCAP Plus. Prior to his 30 years with Chevron, Mr Breidenthal worked with an independent operator and attended the US Naval Academy and University of Kansas. He holds a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering.

Mr Bourgoyne is director of LSU’s Petroleum Engineering Research and Technology Transfer Laboratory. He is working on research in MPD, riser gas detection, dual density and well control training. Prior to joining LSU, Mr Bourgoyne was drilling representative for Chevron in Lafayette, La.

As part of a restructuring of IADC’s Accreditation & Certification Department, Mark Denkowski has joined IADC as the department’s managing director. Mr Denkowski will assume overall management responsibility for the unit, which has been restructured into three functionalized areas of program development, customer service and quality assurance/quality control.

Mr Denkowski comes to IADC with a long history of industry experience and involvement in IADC conferences and activities. Most recently, he was training & development manager for Frontier Drilling. Prior to that, he worked for Transocean following its merger with his long-time previous employer, GlobalSantaFe. That followed several years of international rig-based experience for Smedvig Asia Offshore Drilling.

Among the functional areas within the department, Brenda Kelly will head up the program development function, having assumed the new title of senior director – program development. In this capacity, she will focus on developing, updating and maintaining program documents and other instruments associated with IADC’s competency and accreditation programs.

Elfriede Neidert, quality control/quality assurance coordinator, will continue to head up the QA/QC function, which is responsible for scheduling and following up on training provider audits, as well as overseeing the department’s ISO-certified quality management systems.

The customer service function will consist of Marlene Diaz as team leader – accreditation, and accreditation coordinators Loundia Riggs, Janet Lara, Julia Swindle and Sherri Johnson.

NSOAF, IADC discuss safety management systems

Members of the IADC Executive Committee and regulators from the North Sea Offshore Authorities Forum (NSOAF) met for a briefing and dinner sponsored by IADC on 3 March in Amsterdam. Members of the IADC European Operations Forum also attended the event.

Steve Kropla, IADC group vice president – operations & accreditaton, provided an update on industry efforts in the US and Europe following the Montara and Macondo incidents, as well as specific IADC activities resulting from those events. Regulators from Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom discussed recent developments and challenged drilling contractors to improve their safety and equipment. This resulted in a candid discussion in which contractors detailed the robustness and comprehensiveness of their safety management systems.